ST : Orang Asli tribe wins $2.7m in 15-year land case

May 27, 2010

Orang Asli tribe wins $2.7m in 15-year land case

KUALA LUMPUR: In a landmark settlement, members of an indigenous tribe in Malaysia have won RM6.5 million (S$2.7 million) from highway authorities for forcibly taking away their ancestral land for development, a rights activist said yesterday.

The settlement ended a 15-year legal battle for the Temuan tribe and could bolster more than 200 other land-rights cases pending in court, said Mr Colin Nicholas, a coordinator of the Centre for Orang Asli Concerns.

The Temuan are among 18 ethnic tribes collectively known as Orang Asli, which means 'original people' in the Malay language. Many of the tribespeople live in, or near, the rainforest of Peninsular Malaysia, where they mainly grow crops and hunt.

Mr Nicholas said the settlement was recorded in the Federal Court, the country's top court, after the Malaysian Highway Authority, the federal government and the contractor withdrew their appeal and agreed to compensate some 26 Temuan families.

'It is a landmark settlement that recognised that the Orang Asli have native-title rights to their traditional land,' he said. Land rights are a key concern for Malaysia's indigenous people, many of whom have been pushed off land without compensation.

The highway authorities and government officials could not be reached for comment.

The Temuan families filed a suit after authorities forcibly acquired 15.6ha of land in central Selangor state in 1995 to construct a highway to the Kuala Lumpur International Airport without paying any compensation. The High Court ruled in 2002 that the Orang Asli enjoyed native-title rights and should be compensated. The verdict was upheld by the Court of Appeal in 2005 but the defendants appealed to the Federal Court.

Mr Nicholas said the deadlock was broken in April last year after the opposition-led Selangor government withdrew from the suit in line with its promise to recognise the Orang Asli land rights.

The withdrawal placed the other defendants in a difficult position as their argument was based on the fact that the state owned the land, he said.

ASSOCIATED PRESS